Worksheet 02: Literature search and management

Quality not quantity

Worksheet
Week 2
Author

Dr. Gordon Wright

Published

October 10, 2023

A question for you.

How many journal articles are you able/willing to read for your Personality Essay?

Let’s say 5 is your answer. (of course, you need to be the judge of what the right answer is, but I’d wager 5 is likely in the low end of the range)

Strategy 1 - Read the first 5 papers that turn up on Google when you type in Academic Success?

Strategy 2 - Read the first 5 papers that turn up on the Library search when you type in Academic Success?

Which is better, Strategy 1 or Strategy 2?

Maybe neither 1 nor 2 is necessarily optimal… What might be a better approach?

Strategy is important though. You want to be strategic. You want a ‘Search Strategy’

Some key considerations are:

Where you search and what tools you use

What you search for (your search terms)

What types of papers you are going to look for

How you handle the intial results

How you refine those results and decide that the search is over

How you read and ingest those results

How you take notes and focus on all the areas you need to to answer the question

Lab Challenge! [15 mins]

A quick overview from your Lab Tutor. Pay attention.

Research Skill Audit

Complete the survey and save the data to your lab notebook. A useful ‘reflection’!

Topic Speed Dating

See the Miro board entitled ‘Topic Brainstorming’ - Please add, comment, list your potential topics!

Methods Matching

Use the Miro board entitled ‘MethodsMania’ and see if anything tickles your experimental fancy!

Group Behaviour & Group Ethos

Now is the time to formalise how you plan to work. Use the Miro board entitled ‘TeamTools & Ethos’

Reuse

CC BY-NC-SA